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Lightning Draft Position Heading Into Draft Lottery

The Lightning will head into the draft lottery in the 10th position. The lottery drawing will be held on April 10th, with the results announced by the Deputy Commissioner on the NBC Sports Network at 8 pm.

The Lightning have a 2.1% chance of winning the lottery, which would enable them to move up 4 spots to the 6th spot in the draft. The Lightning also have a 3.9% chance of falling to the 11th pick. It's a 94% likelihood, however, that 10th is indeed where the team will find its draft pick heading into June.

The Lightning also hold Detroit's first round pick (pick 23, as of right now), Minnesota's second round pick (pick 37), their own second round pick (pick 40), Philadelphia's second round pick (pick 52, as of right now), and possibly Florida's second round pick (pick 55, as of right now), although the Panthers have the option to take the pick and give the Lightning their 2013 second round pick, and GM's rarely defer taking a pick in these situations. Playoff teams that advance to their respective conference finals are resituated in the bottom 4 picks of the draft, which is why the draft position of Detroit, Philadelphia, and Florida may yet change.

Several of these picks are likely to be packaged in a trade for a goaltender this offseason, but for those that are retained, BoltProspects' research has shown in the past that roughly 70% of NHLer's come from the top-60 picks of the draft. The Lightning's current organizational needs lean heavily towards defense, where Everett's Ryan Murphy, Red Deer's Matthew Dumba, and the USNTDP's Jacob Trouba headline a very deep crop of blueliners.